Maude-Aimée Leblanc cutting her teeth as a rookie on LPGA Tour

Randy Phillips, THE GAZETTE05.08.2012

Maude-Aimee Leblanc missed teh cut in her last three tournaments on the LPGA Tour despite ranking second in average driving distance at 282 yards. Her problems are with accuracy at the tee and putting.

MONTREAL - Quebec’s Maude-Aimée Leblanc has missed the cut in each of her last three tournaments in her rookie season on the LPGA Tour.

That would be enough disappointment for some golfers to start doubting their ability, but not Leblanc.

“I’m not worried about my game or my potential,” she told The Gazette. “It’s just a matter of getting experience and improving certain aspects of my game. I’m not at all discouraged.”

The 23-year-old from Sherbrooke is one of two Canadians among the 31 players in their first year on the LPGA Tour to earn full cards for the 2012 season. The other is Toronto’s Rebecca Lee-Bentham.

Leblanc and Lee-Bentham made their tour debuts in mid-March at the $1.5-million RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup at the Wildfire Golf Club in Phoenix, Ariz.

Leblanc closed out the tour’s first full-field, 72-hole event with a 2-under-par 70 to finish at even-par 288 and tied for 51st, earning $4,669.

Since then, it’s been a struggle for the former NCAA Division I standout at Purdue University. She missed the cut at the Kia Classic the following week, the LPGA Lotte Championship in mid-April and the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic two weeks ago.

She spoke to The Gazette a few days after her last event from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where she makes her home. It was the start of a month-long break before returning to the tour at the ShopRite LPGA Classic, slated for June 1-3 in Galloway, N.J.

Leblanc knows her rookie season is all about cutting her teeth among the best female players in the world.

She would prefer to play every week, but realized the time off would be best used to work on key elements of her game before the tour spins into high gear during the summer.

“I’m just going to practise as much as I can until my next tournament,” Leblanc said. “On the greens, I’m having a hard time making birdies, making putts. But I do feel like my game is definitely better than my scores. So it’s very disappointing to end up with a score you know you shouldn’t have. It just doesn’t feel like the way I played. So I’ll be working a lot on my putting over the next few weeks.”

The 6-foot-1 Leblanc ranks second on the tour in average driving distance at 282 yards, less than two yards behind American Brittany Lincicome, who won last year’s CN Canadian Women’s Open at Hillsdale.

Less impressive, however, is that Leblanc ranks 135th in driving accuracy (59 per cent), 77th in greens in regulation (64 per cent) and 109th in putting average (1.89). The fact she has produced only one under-par round in 10 played is reflected in a 73.4 scoring average, ranking 75th overall.

“For sure (accuracy off the tee) is not where I’d like it to be,” Leblanc said. “It’s definitely much harder to make birdies when you’re not in the fairway. So yeah, that’s something else I’ll be working on.”

Leblanc also had rounds of 72, 72 and 74 before earning a cheque in her first event as a tour member. She ranks 12th among rookies in earnings. South Korean Sa Yeon Ryu leads the way with $304,337 after four top-five finishes in the seven events she has played. Ryu captured last year’s United States Women’s Open, an LPGA major, and as a result didn’t have to go through qualifying school to earn exempt status on the tour this season.

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Leblanc was one of 11 Canadians among the 144 players who competed in the final stage of the 2012 Q-school, a five-round event held Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 in Daytona Beach, Fla. She tied for seventh at even-par and was the best Canadian, finishing three shots ahead of Lee-Bentham.

Leblanc turned pro shortly after graduating with a degree in psychology from Purdue, where she led the Boilermakers women’s team to its first NCAA Division I title.

Leblanc made her pro debut in remarkable fashion with a 2-under 70 in the first round of the CN Canadian Women’s Open, leaving her four shots off the lead heading into the second round. She went into a windy and wet final round four shots off the lead, but staggered to an 80 to tie for 49th at even-par 288.

“It was a day where things just got progressively worse,” she said at the time. “It was tough to try to stop it once it started. You fight, but just can’t get it back.”

Leblanc has followed in the footsteps of other Quebecers who have reached the LPGA Tour, including Canadian Golf Hall of Famer Jocelyne Bourassa, the only Canadian to win the Canadian Open. Others include Denise Lavigne, Marie-Josée Rouleau, Isabelle Beisiegel and Lisa Meldrum.

The consensus is that Leblanc has the most potential, something reflected in her corporate sponsorship from Garda World Security, RBC as part of its Emerging Professionals Program, and Callaway Golf.

Leblanc lives on her own in Fort Lauderdale and hasn’t seen members of her family since she first teed it up on the tour. But with a lot of fellow Quebecers and French-Canadians living nearby, she hasn’t felt homesick.

“There are a lot of people I know around here, so that’s good. I don’t feel all alone. It’s nice,” said Leblanc, who likes to go shopping, go to the movies, or play tennis when she’s not on the practice range or golf course.

And Leblanc says her new life on tour been “great” despite performances that have been below expectations.

“It’s been pretty much everything I expected,” she said. “It’s good.

“I’m not happy with my play,” she added, “but I know it’s going to come.”